Before 1912:
The streets west of the river may be called west followed by the street name while streets east of the river may be called east then the street name..
On the west side of the river, streets are called north or south from the dividing line of Bridge Street.
On the east side of the river, streets are called north or south from the dividing line of Fulton Street

When I was a child in the 1950's, Grand Rapids still had many buildings from the 1840's and 1850's. The City didn't really begin to drastically change until c. 1965 when the freeway and urban renewal destroyed so much.

Important!

The creation of streets:

1. Legal right of ways were created by the registration of plat maps. As time went on, these streets and their names might be legally changed. Some of these legal records may be lost or mis-placed.

2. Hodge-podge collection of private streets with popular but unrecorded names . As time went on, these streets and their names might be changed any old way without any official legal action so no record ever kept. If this private land was taken for unpaid taxes, these private streets would become public streets with records kept from this point forward.

Most of the pages are two big for just one shot.

Page Order:

Volume One: North and West sides

3-12     Downtown

11-47  North Side   page 48?

49-107 West Side but some of those might be chopped up ones, need to double check

Volume Two: South Side

Downtown

Pages 3,4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12                         Page 11 is under Near North

Near North

Michigan St to Fulton St, Division Ave to Fuller Ave,
Pages  13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22         

Farther North

Hastings St to Fulton St, Fairview Ave to Benson Ave
Pages 23, 24, 25, 26

Fairbanks St to Hastings St, Grand River to Sinclair Ave
Pages 27, 28, 29, 30

Mason St to Fairbanks St, Grand River to    Lafayette Ave
Pages 31, 32, 33, 34, right side of page 38

Even Farther North

Barnett St to Mason St, Grand River to Taylor Ave
Pages 35, 36

Howland St to Barnett St, Grand River to Coit Ave
Pages 37, 38, 39

Quimby St to Carrier St, Grand River to College Ave
Pages 40,  41, 42, 43,

Sweet St to Quimby St , Grand River  to College Ave
Pages 44, 45, 46,

Dean St to Sweet  St , Grand River to Monroe Ave
Page 47

The West Side is unique in Grand Rapids history and geography. It began as an Indian Village. Then the railroads came resulting in mills, mines, tanneries, furniture factories. The West Side has always been Working Class, down-to-earth, hard-working.